


Waiting

by narsus



Category: Cabin Pressure, Christian Myth & History
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/783.html?thread=2980879#cmt2980879">this</a> prompt which asked for MJN as the four horsemen of the apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Version One

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Cabin Pressure belongs to John Finnemore and BBC Radio 4.

Modern times call for modern attitudes. A little shifting and rearranging. Unfortunately, said times also call for an almost indefinite hold on their position. They’ve been waiting for the end for quite some time now, and every time it strikes them that they’ve been waiting long enough, and the solution would be for the angels to blow their damn trumpets or call the whole thing off already, bureaucracy throws another excuse at them. They have been in the human world far too long as it is. Playing at being human beings.

Famine likes to keep his hand in at least, and these days he’s finally stopped trying to test his ‘recipes’ on them. His is a clever solution after all. He doesn’t withhold nourishment precisely, but rather makes it impossible to consume it. Surprising Rice is the vanguard of his arsenal, but doubtlessly, he’s already working on something else to outstrip its particular qualities.

Pestilence, similarly, has adapted her tactics for the modern age. There is no smallpox now, though she does, frequently, mourn its passing. These days there is fatigue and stress to do the work for her. A little clipped conversation, a sly comment, a subtle slide of her gaze and the immune system buckles under all the pressure. She can, in fact, kill people with a mere flu infection these days.

War too has changed tactics. Gone are blood-soaked armour and flaming sword. Nowadays they would be most inappropriate. Instead, they are replaced by blinding fury and rage. Not to begin with, he likes to start of small, but eventually they are the inevitable conclusion. Incompetence, clumsiness and stammering apologies are the little prompts towards the sort of irrational fury that has men killing each other.

While his peers have all, understandably, evolved and changed their game, Death at least has always been inevitable. He has little need to adapt, being infinitely and utterly prepared for every solution. So instead he waits and watches. The end will come, the angels will eventually get their brass section in order and then the reaping will begin. But until then, there’s no harm in it if he merely sits, amused by his colleagues' antics, with his feet up on the portacabin table.


	2. Version Two

Waiting ought to dull their edge, as the Heavens rotate and the human world spins in orbit. It ought to take the sting out of their whole operation, but then the same could be said for the Underworld’s position as well, and goodness knows that the Morning Star is forever sharpening his halberd.

There are rules and regulations about this sort of thing, so Death likes to remind them all. There is a procedure to be implemented for this almost indefinite delay. The chain of command must be obeyed if utter chaos is to be averted. He is the Captain of their unit and they’d better heed his command. Due process is necessary for their operation: law, order, procedure, logic. So of course he needs the hat: it reminds them that he’s in charge.

Of course rules are meant to be broken, War always opinions. There wouldn’t be any slaughter of any kind, let alone wholesale, if everybody played by the rules. Give them a little taste of danger, the thrill of sly trickery accomplished and soon enough it’ll all come crashing down. The first thing to go before the cataclysm is the rule of law that they so highly prize. Start with customs regulations and they’ll be fighting over sustenance soon enough.

Smaller portions are only logical for the long-haul: Famine makes a point of stating it. It’s all very well to expect them to fight over resources but there need to be scarce resources in the first place. The logical step is to accustom them to less, and less, as time goes on. Let everything shrink down until there really isn’t any worth left in it at all. They’ll starve themselves to death before War can claim any credit. Pricing them out of the market is the perfect plan. Famine should know, after all, she is a businesswoman.

Disease will be the natural conclusion to any beginning, Pestilence knows. Mutation is the cornerstone of his endeavour. Every vaccine or sterilisation procedure is merely a learning curve. And when they’re starved or reckless all of that will go out of the window anyway. Contamination will be rife, basic food hygiene all but forgotten. The current state of affairs is just a trial run, a little bit of sentimentality. When they begin he won’t have a chance to literally put his hands on everything after all.


	3. Version Three

The point of early entrenchment is that they can settle into their human personas. Quite why they make up the entirety of a charter airline isn’t something that anybody questions. It would be like asking why Iblis is currently pretending at a psychosomatic limp and Lilith is running around solving crimes. Some things make sense only to their orchestrators.

War is the party responsible for their current situation at any rate. Most likely because she is always, even without conscious effort, fostering conflict. They aren’t authorised to engage in overt manoeuvres just yet so she’s taken to locking batches of humans into a flying tin can to pressurise. The elegance of the exercise lies in the fact that said humans pay for the privilege. In fact, half the time War herself isn’t even there. She has seeded her pressure chamber with toil and snare, and to the simple human mind that is enough to tip it over the edge.

Pestilence, similarly, makes use of the human contraption. At the moment his actions are only minor but they are a start. Humans are very fond of borders and barriers, hoping to designate safe spaces for themselves. All it takes is a ripe apple or a packet of fish paste or a bunch of flowers to transgress those sacrosanct arenas. Technically, it’s harder these days. Humanity has learnt all about proper quarantine and sanitation, their medical schools teach it, but that doesn’t stop Pestilence smuggling them a little gift or two, across their borders, to add to the local flora and fauna.

Famine takes a slower route to achieving his ends. Empty calories and stimulants. A Toblerone and a cup of coffee are enough to set him up for the day. Human nutrition requires more, of course, but they hardly realise it when he strolls past, a silhouette of sleek lines and defined cheekbones. He is impossibly slender, and, if any of them ever really looked at him, they’d realise that there was something not quite right about the angles. But thin is fashionable, starved even more so. He trails envy and eating disorders in his wake, the afterimage of their aspiration burned forever into their retinas.

Death is the most cheerful of their cadre. He ought to be, he is the most magnanimous of them, the Friend of the Friendless, the Surcease of Pain. He has time and patience for all of humanity. He will welcome them under his scythe readily, stealing them from the thrall of his comrades. He is the end, the final full stop at the end of the last sentence, so he has all the leisure in the world to be gentle with them. And in the end, when they all come to a halt, when at last there is an end to their suffering and striving, he will watch, joyously, as the corn sprouts up over the bodies of the fallen.


	4. Version Four

The trick to camouflage is to run contrary to expectations, and in the modern age such subterfuge is essential. The general population may not be quite so ready to point out the evident signs of the impending, but there is always the issue of the few who do recall the old tales. Catechism classes may not pay much heed to St John anymore but whole legions of Catholic school children have gone over his work with a fine tooth comb rather than pay attention to their lessons.

The necessity of hiding is something that Famine invokes regularly when he cooks. He’s a rather good chef after all. Nobody suspects the gourmet foodie with the expanding waistline. He is free to add unnecessary toxins and remove essential nutrients as he chooses. They consume it all, guzzling down vast quantities that provide them with nothing but addiction and other, assorted, health pangs. Indulgence is the key to their undoing. Alcohol then is, understandably, his favourite weapon of choice, but of course he never touches a drop himself.

It’s easiest to spread disease amongst the young and infirm, but Pestilence has always liked a challenge. Even the miracle cure, penicillin, has been turned to his cause though fatal allergic reaction. The route to infection is better spread amongst the strong. Carriers who will unwittingly exchange mutations, allowing them to grow and develop into strains that will incapacitate all they come into contact with. At the moment he’s rather fixated on viral infections that will cross the species barrier, and there’s no better place to cultivate that than amongst agriculture students, sloppy in their disinfectant procedures.

The inevitable is inevitable which is why War doesn’t exert himself with quite the drive of his fellows. As long as the world consists of different people there will be conflict. No matter how big or small the grouping. There will be sparks, there will be arrogance and presumptions, and no little megalomania to set off the next conflict. In fact, War tends to spend most of his time doing the best he can to calm them down. He wouldn’t want them to expend their natural violence in minor situations or burn out too quickly after all. There is a correct place and time for the explosion of their pointless fury and he does his best to direct them towards that point.

In the end there is only ever going to be one conclusion. Death is always the sole victor. She may not be riding a pale horse at the moment but, soon enough, the hour will come. For the moment all she need do is marshal her troops, corralling them into some sort of order. They are only awaiting the signal, the moment when the fanfare for humanity will split the air and each mortal nation will, though they fail to realise, all but raise her banner aloft. When the hour comes she will be triumphant and glorious, celebrated by all the peoples of the Earth, who will learn, at last, that all their other petty conflicts were only ever minor skirmishes.


End file.
